I was preparing a presentation the other day where I am planning to share the various steps of the recruiting process.

As I reviewed the list of the steps we have been conducting for years, I realized how truly involved the recruiting process can become. On just my basic list, there were over 20 steps and that doesn’t include the actual sourcing/recruiting tactics that occur within the process. The 20 steps was just getting from the creation of a req to an offer acceptance.

Twenty steps. Some of these twenty stood out like a sore thumb – communicating with deselected candidates. As I reflected on the importance of this activity, I approximated that at least 70 percent of organizations skip this step altogether. Then I thought about the likelihood that 95% of organizations underestimate the importance of this communication. Do I have anything to validate that percentage? No. But we’ll do it this way, if you’re doing a great job of effectively communicating with every candidate who touches your recruiting process, stop reading. Job well done. But if you don’t, keep reading – it’s important.

In the busy world of recruiting and management of the process, communicating with the deselected candidates is an easy step to skip. Now more than ever, your employment brand is important in attracting and even more importantly engaging candidates. Communicating quickly to deselected candidates keeps your reputation intact not only from an employment branding perspective but also from an overall brand perspective.

Think about it. Looking for a job is filled with emotion. No one wants to get the “thanks but you didn’t make the cut” response but at least they can deal with the denial and move on. They might even be impressed that ABC company took the time to respond (remember, so many do not). But to leave a candidate in the land of limbo is bad form. In addition to leaving a bad taste in the candidate’s mouth, it also can result in jamming your inbox with emails/voicemails requesting information on said position which is a drain on productivity. Worse yet, the next time the candidate is at the store and trying to pick between your company’s offering and another, this one interaction may just be the tipping point needed to dis your brand for your competitors offering. That hits right where it hurts – the bottom line.

Does it happen? You bet. Often? Who knows? But let’s conservatively guess that for every 1,000 candidates you process, 1% leave with a bad taste (because you didn’t tell them they were not selected), that’s 10 people. In 1981, it was shown that people who receive bad service tell 10 other people. Well, it’s the era of social media and everyone has the immediate ability to influence others. If it was 10 people in 1981, I would guess it’s at least 100 people in 2013. So using that logic (stick with me – I’m getting to the point), for every 1,000 candidates you process, you are influencing at least 10 people directly and 1,000 people indirectly.

Okay, I know what you’re thinking. If someone isn’t hired at XYZ company, are they really going to go out and tell the world. Probably not. But the next time a discussion pops up that discusses your brand, they just might take that as an opportunity to voice a negative opinion. You’ve just given them the catalyst to be your adversary. In addition, they aren’t as likely to apply for future positions or refer others to your organization for potential careers.

With the volume of candidates increasing, companies must have an automated process in place that manages these important communication touch points. If you don’t have an automated process and need one, give us a call – it’s one of the 20 steps that we do for clients every day.

Bottom line, be nice, protect your brand and be sure your recruitment process is as effective for those who you don’t hire as it is for those you do.
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Jen Iliff is the VP of Marketing at Novotus.

As an RPO provider, Novotus loves bringing best practices to our clients across various industries.

As a result, we always have a passion to learn more about how other recruiters succeed. The Recruiting Team of the Year event in the Fort Worth/Dallas area recently was a case study in best practices by the top recruiting teams in the area, on both the corporate and agency side. There were some great stories by all of the companies who competed. The corporate winners were Intuit, Citi, Pizza Hut (Yum Brands). The top agency recruiting teams were Paladin Staffing, Timberhorn, and High Profile Staffing.

At a follow up luncheon, we heard more about their recruiting best practices in a panel discussion with representatives from each of the Recruiting Team of the Year winners. Collectively these recruiting teams facilitated thousands of hires worldwide in 2012. Individually they are all case studies in the very best we as recruiters have to offer as we make sure our hiring managers identify and select the most qualified candidates for their open positions.

Just in case you weren’t at today’s lunch, there were some awesome takeaways I will share in review.

Eric Dunlap, Staffing Director and Senior VP of HR at Citi said it well, and issued a challenge to those involved with supporting recruiting teams. “At Citi we have a commitment to never let a recruiting team member fail,” Eric said. He said that commitment underscored all of their recruiting processes, including a move to establish a sourcing team in 2011, and other process and technology improvements they embrace as an organization. It was a common thread throughout the discussion as each panelist demonstrated commitment to a strong team approach in their organizations.

On the agency side, Browyn Allen, President of High Profile Staffing, discussed how committed her organization is to teamwork. For their company that plays out in a variety of ways. One example was they make sure every candidate they work with comes into the office and spends a few minutes with each recruiter in the company, not just the recruiter they are there to meet with about a specific requisition.

Innovation was another hallmark of the top recruiting teams. Gail Houston from Intuit shared about their social media efforts. All of their recruiters go through a six week social media boot camp, and they document the results. As a result, referrals from social media sources, especially Facebook and LinkedIn, have soared.

From expanding the reach and use of technology to protecting the candidate experience, these organizations are committed to solving their hiring managers needs now and building pipelines for the future.
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Jimmy Taylor is the co-founder of Novotus.

Who’s afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? Not Novotus

A few weeks ago, we had the opportunity to gather as a company and kickoff 2013 with a bang. Last year in Jan of 2012, we did our first annual all company kickoff which I quarterbacked along side Hank Stringer (www.stringersearch.com). Our overarching goal for 2012 was to “Raise the Bar”…and that we did! The Novotus team worked fast, hard, and smart in 2012 and we exceeded all our goals…we were very blessed.

So…how do you top that?
How do you motivate, encourage, elevate, engage…
How do you continue the momentum without the wheels falling off?

We got this and maybe the sauce is not that secret after all!

First

You seek out a venue that allows you to spread your wings, run around, get fresh air, see some things, hear some things, maybe even cook-up a few things.

Second

You invite your team. YOUR TEAM of dedicated, smart, innovative, hard working, honest people…special people who you work with everyday and the same people that have made a commitment to our company and customers to do what’s right, always, to be passionate and innovative, to WOW our customers, to put others first, and to work as a team.

Third

You point them to a stack of bricks on which they will, with their teammates, write words….words that encapsulate who we are, what we do, how we act, what we strive for, how we treat others, etc.

FOUNDATION:

“The body on which other parts rest or are overlaid”

Remember what happend to the little pigs that built their house with straw? What about the pig that took his time and built his with bricks…a strong foundation!

You see, it’s not about a slick dog and pony show, cool graphics, big hooks, lip service, futuristic mumbo jumbo, etc. At the core of the company exists a foundation. The foundation must be built on absolutes and be demonstrated over and over again….a strength in bond and battle, tried and true.

All companies have some foundational structure. It’s how well it’s built that will determine how long you are around and how big you will go.

As for me and my house…we will continue to build on solid ground!~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Cory Kruse is the Chief Operating Officer of Novotus.

How many ways can it be said that “Talk is Cheap”?

Let’s see:

- “All Hat and No Cattle”
- “All Dressed Up and Nowhere To Go”
- “Put Up or Shut Up”

all just for starters.

There is amazing pressure on the sales people in the Recruitment Process Outsourcing space today to close business and as a result they promise the moon. RPO sales professionals know that if they can talk you into a deal that you’re likely to stick with the program for a year or so to give it a chance. These folks are not bad people, but just betting that things will work out.

Here is the problem. HR leaders take a HUGE risk when they throw in with an RPO provider and at some level place their credibility (or much more) on the line. HR leaders are also in desperate need of help when they sign the deal and all too often it sounds so good to just pitch the RPO the keys and let them deal with the hassle.

The Reality Is: Enduring programs are built on three things:

1. Relationship and Trust: This takes time to build.
2. Chemistry: Cultural alignment are crucial to a successful program.
3. Performance: Can these two organizations come together as one and satisfy the business needs, on time, with good quality and on budget? That’s the million dollar question and in the end game – filling jobs – making the hiring managers happy and doing it in a special way are essential to a successful program.

So here are some suggestions that will eliminate so much of the risk:

Start Small: No RPO program is an all at once roll out, so why buy before you try? Get the provider to work a smaller program first and see how they perform, test the chemistry and see if a good trust based relationship develops.

Short Tail Contracts: Many RPOs are working to position themselves for acquisition. A huge factor in valuating a business are long term contracts. The problem lies in the fact that over a 3 year period, no person knows what will happen in their business landscape. It eludes me how an RPO sales person speaks to the scalability of their model but then engineers an agreement where the client is STUCK with them and the cost of their service in a downturn. So – be sure that when you chose a provider that there is an adequate out clause for performance as well as a downturn.

We saw these trends years ago and that is why Novotus looks to start small with clients to test the viability of the partnership both in alignment and chemistry. Likewise when we do engage in a more enduring program, we have a bilateral lever either party can pull if things are just not going to work out or if there is a major slowdown in hiring. In some ways for me it’s the best motivator for us as we wake up everyday knowing we have to earn our way into this relationship. It forces us to perform our way into the client’s heart rather than tying them up in a contract.

So, Talk is Cheap – Put Up or Shut Up – Otherwise they’re All Hat and No Cattle are All Dressed Up with No Place To Go.
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Mike Mayeux is the Founder and CEO of Novotus.

For all of us recruiters who turned the page from 2012 to 2013, the difficulty in finding the right talent will continue.

I came across this interesting graphic, courtesy of Manufacturing Institute and Workboots.com, that has some powerful impact.

Some of the interesting info for those of us looking to find skilled workers includes the following stats:
• The average skilled workers age is 56. Do I hear “baby boomers retiring” anyone?
• We will need an additional 10 million skilled workers by 2020.
• 83% of companies report a moderate or severe problem in hiring skilled workers, with the hardest to find being technicians, skilled trades operators, and production operators.
• Currently 600,000 skilled jobs are unfilled!

A problem limited to the skilled trades? Hardly. High unemployment rates or not, if you are looking for licensed healthcare professionals, energy workers, engineers, technology workers, etc, you have jobs that are unfilled because the skill set is in short supply. You see the problem every day.

So what is your response going to be to this continuing and growing problem in 2013? I will tell you mine, from the perspective of the various ‘hats’ we all wear. As a taxpayer, my response is I am a bit hacked off. We continue to push all students toward college and ignore the hard data on how unprepared that leaves them to do some minor things like, I don’t know, earn a living maybe. I am going to look for every opportunity to tell both political parties at every level either change the way we educate or get out of the education business. We have the metrics and you are failing at it. I am going to use data like the above to make that point.

As a recruiter, I am going to use my influence with hiring managers and my industry involvement through groups like Staffing Management Association to talk about hard data like this. We do our hiring managers a disservice if we allow them to live in a fairy tale land where they believe high unemployment means the tough jobs should be easy to fill, and a “B” company can always hire an “A” player for every role.

It’s not an easy job, especially if you live your recruiter life as an order taker. You have to move to a trusted advisor and partner. Give them industry specific data, along with a plan for success that includes proactive strategies to source ahead of the need and a way to “hire to deficiency” like my friend Hank Stringer discusses.

Obtaining industry data, then creating and executing a successful recruiting plan will make you a valuable player in 2013.

Here’s the best news. Hiring can be tough. But all you have to do is be better than your competition at making a plan and executing it. And most of your recruiting competition is still completely reactive. They have no plan. They just respond to what hits their desk every day. Out plan and outperform and you win.

Reminds me of a great T-shirt I saw in Colorado this summer. It had a picture of three hikers running up a mountain with a bear in pursuit. The caption said “second place never felt so good”.

Happy hunting!

The late Zig Ziglar, a legendary motivator and sales trainer, often commented on the value of salespeople by saying, “nothing happens until someone sells something”.

That logic extends perfectly to recruiting. Nothing happens in business until someone recruits a new employee.

Ask any good recruiter who has labored at the craft for awhile. We know our efforts make a huge difference for our companies. We live those results every day. We talk to the hiring managers whose teams are excelling because of the top performers they’ve added. We recognize the impact, we feel it.

But it is tough to quantify that impact. As a result, recruiting is often seen as just another important HR function, sometimes ignored unless there is a problem. I have had a couple of experiences lately that have reminded me of just how good many recruiters and recruiting teams are, and the ability to easily quantify their impact on the bottom line.

First, I was part of a judging panel for a Recruiting Team of the Year event in the Fort Worth/Dallas area. Two area recruiting organizations, the DFW Staffing Management Association and the DFW Texas Recruiters Network hosted the event, and it was a case study in what great recruiting teams do every day.

The second was reading the results of a study by Boston Consulting Group about the financial impact of recruiting. It is a great study and Dr. John Sullivan did an excellent job of summarizing the results on ERE. In short, BCG analyzed the various HR functions – recruiting, health and security management, delivering critical learning programs, and the rest – and analyzed their impact on revenue and profit growth. While none of us in recruiting were likely surprised by the results, seeing the results were still amazing.

Recruiting outperformed all other human resource functions — most of them by a wide margin. It provides 3.5x the profit growth, and 2x the profit margin, of low performing HR functions. The study went on to analyze the stock price increase of companies with high performer HR groups. In short, the companies with great HR groups saw almost 10x stock price growth over the market average.

What does that all mean? It means our instincts have been right. The anecdotal examples we have used are correct. Our life has meaning and all that stuff. Companies with great HR groups outperform the competitors and the marketplace financially, and by a wide margin. Within those HR teams, recruiting is the most valuable function that serves the company. Great recruiting makes a profound impact on companies’ bottom lines!

Great job recruiters! Stay tuned. We will talk more about the Recruiting Team of the Year results next time!
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Jimmy Taylor has more than 20 years experience in the recruiting industry and is the co-founder of Novotus.

She is also stubborn and thinks she has the world figured out. So, I walk around the house worried sick about my baby girl. My sweet wife, Shanie, tracks my daughter’s every move like the CIA tracks high profile terrorists. Not long ago, I was running a “Daddy is scared to death” scenario by Shanie and she made a comment that was amazing. She said, “Mike, you’re not seeing that right. That’s not what’s happening, you’re HALLUCINATING.”

WOW! Hallucinating, really? I spent some time thinking about this notion and while at work, I realized that quite often, I am simply just thinking I see something that does not exist. Which it turns out, is exactly what a hallucination is.

Hold on, there is more. One of my favorite books is Golf is not a Game of Perfect. This book is written by Dr. Bob Rotella, a stellar Sports Psychologist and he brilliantly defined “The Athletic Mindset”. Simply put, great athletes create their own reality in their minds as they compete. I have hired people around that mindset for years and love working with athletically minded people who have spent a lifetime training their minds to win.

Okay, so we have two competing thoughts going here. One is ‘hallucinations’ and the other is ‘the athletic mindset’. It seems to me that we need to be aware of what might be an authentic professional hallucination and react to it quickly. When the people you trust in your business are telling you “Hey, that’s not real, that is not what’s happening,” hit the pause button and consider that you might be jumping at shadows that are not there. Two, always train your mind to engineer scenarios where you can achieve desired results.

Everyday at work, it seems to me that some part of my time is spent dealing with teammates who are simply struggling from professional hallucinations and it’s my job to help them see what is true, or what they can make true with the right mental framework. Professional hallucinations are about FEAR in the end game and the athletic mindset is about confidence.

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Mike Mayeux is the Founder and CEO of Novotus.

We have dozens of brilliant recruiting professionals, researchers, marketing and administrative experts all pointed at three tasks.
1. Fill every job
2. Delight our customers (both the hiring manager and all candidates)
3. Encourage and elevate the team around them

As you might imagine, we love numbers and study them like a good sommelier studies a good wine. The one number we focus on with intense focus is Searches OVER 60 Days Old. It’s an important number. At this point in the search, we typically have a pretty animated hiring team, the recruiter is getting close to frustrated and our HR partners are looking to us for answers as well.

After years in this business, it finally occurred to me that maybe we should just provide our clients some options. Now – these are obvious, but they seem to escape everyone involved almost all of the time. It’s important to cover these because they amazingly seem to put everyone back on the same team again. It is human nature to look for someone at fault when things are getting bad, but its good business leadership to pull the team together and get them working towards a solution.

So, the next time you are upside down in a search and things are heating up, I have found that it is amazingly helpful to share these 4 options with the entire team.
1. You can change the job specs and keep searching
2. You can NOT change the job specs and keep searching
3. You can HIRE someone you have interviewed
4. You can GIVE UP

That’s it… That’s all there is… If the decision is to not hire one of the people in the loop, you can either quit or keep looking. Deciding is power. Things get bad when the team has no plan and when there is a lack of fruitful dialog. The metrics seem to always point to the right decision when aligned with the business goals.

Recruiting is about choosing first and executing next. The next time you are having trouble closing out a tough search, pull the team together and tell them about the 4 choices and watch things start to happen.

Oh, by the way, every team seems to have one of those super smart people that loves coming up with another option. There actually is a 5th option… FIRE THE RECRUITER and/or ADD MORE RECRUITERS. Here is the problem. The recruiting team you have on the search, by this time, not only know this search and your team very well, they also know what they have done to date. A huge percentage of the work another recruiter might do as the “On Deck” player will duplicate work already done. Adding additional recruiters in an uncoordinated fashion will just confuse the market and the work/communication flow.

So – Stick with your team whenever possible or you will likely just extend an already long search.

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Mike Mayeux is the Founder and CEO of Novotus.

Recruiter.com caught my attention recently with a Staffing Industry Report statistic that puts the valuation of the RPO market in the billions – yes BILLIONS. Yet after all these years and all these dollars, the crusade to define RPO carries on.

For my money, the core premise of RPO is widely understood. RPO is the form of business process outsourcing in which an employer outsources some or all of its talent acquisition function (I looked up my definition on Wikipedia). Beyond that I understand why there is room for pause. The specific needs of the employer as well as the perspectives of those within the organization will, and should, have a direct impact on how RPO is defined by that organization. Providers should be thoughtfully selected based on the needs and desired outcomes – perhaps more basically the DEFINITION – established by that employer. (You should know I anxiously await the next several “Episodes” of this recent ERE post that tackles this discussion head on.)

All this has me considering my own experiences across the discovery, RFP, and implementation aspects of deals I’ve been exposed to as a Novotus employee over the years. In all these examples, I don’t recall a time that my partners and I have attempted to define RPO for clients or prospects. Would we ever attempt to define their needs or outcomes? Of course not. Then why would we attempt to define RPO? RPO does, and will continue to, mean different things to different people. So, whether it’s a start-up seeking a single key player or a retailer gearing up for the holiday season, for Novotus, RPO is whatever our clients need it to be. To be sure, this makes our professional lives more challenging as it requires proficiency across a range of tools and technologies as well as processes and workflows – each customized to fit the needs of that employer. We embrace these challenges because we value others first and doing what’s right and because we understand that by overcoming them, we are becoming better recruiters. And for us, that’s what it’s all about – we love this job!

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Bryan White is a Research Solutions Manager for Novotus.

Deadlines are closer together, bandwidth stretching thin, and the risk of burnout is sitting eagerly in everyone’s back pocket. Blend has become the new balance between work and life with technology as its catalyst of instant, insistent and sometimes downright intrusive need to be plugged in at all times.

At the end of the day we want to give ourselves a pat on the back for being the biggest, baddest employee out there, boasting our hours of overtime and how slammed we are. Unfortunately, that is not how human capital works. Consider buying a car that needs to be paid in full for one year and that equals your annual salary. Would you buy a car that works like a Lamborghini or is as shiny as the Bat Mobile to only have it putter out around month 6 or 7, maybe rounding out its good qualities around month 12? Probably not. In the same respect, a company isn’t investing its human capital money to watch burnout take its effect over the long haul.

So what can be done to ensure we don’t pitter patter until we are out of juice and need an expensive tune-up? To answer this, it is important to think strategically from the company’s standpoint as well as from the managers’ and employees’.

As a company, encourage monthly or bi-monthly events. Novotus has an event planning committee in full swing to create an enjoyable atmosphere while advocating for team bonding through friendly competition. We average about two events a month ranging from lunchtime yoga to pot-lucks, cook-offs and food drives. Novotus also holds a monthly bell ringing in which we all share in the successes of our other teammates. Taking the time to show that life isn’t all about work will go a long way in the success of your employees (think: affective commitment).

Delving deeper, management can play a crucial role in proactively avoiding burnout and actively seeking ways to hone in on positive employee experiences. In our fast-food world of order and get it in 90 seconds or less, it is a good idea to know which tasks need immediate feedback and which ones may not need your employees to respond to you at all. Second, it may be beneficial to keep an eye on everyone’s plate. During Thanksgiving, it is easy to pile a plate with the surplus of food available, but that doesn’t mean someone can eat everything on their plate nor give each food the time it deserves to really wrap one’s head around the aromas, textures etc. In the same way, I think many employees will load up their plate not realizing what it actually takes to get through everything in a quality driven way. Finally, employees look to you for how to act. You did something great to get to the management level, so mimicking your behaviors is natural for most employees. Try taking those lunch breaks, or walking around the office every once in a while.

As an employee, remember to take “think” breaks during the day even if you have to put them in your calendar. Get up and walk around about every 90 minutes. Also, focus on one thing at a time. You would never drink coffee in the shower, mop the floor while dusting, or feed the baby while mowing the lawn. Give each project its due respect, energy and time and watch as the product-driven quality emerges. Finally, sleep and refuel. Do not hibernate, re-start, or log-off like a computer, actually hit the shut-down button and force close the projects still left open on your mind at night.

Many companies are asking their employees to do more for less and although it may seem like huge challenges are being conquered, the risk of burnout is running right along with those achievements. Set fewer challenges, and expect great qualitative results!
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Amanda Marfisi is a Recruitment Operations Administrator for Novotus.